Many of you will have seen profiles of certain people popping up on the blog over the last couple of days. Esra’a, Pete and Lina will be just some of the five hundred 20-somethings from all 192 countries debating the big issues. The event takes place in East London at the ExCel Centre from Feb 8th – Feb 10th.

I’ll be there for WHYS throughout, updating you with blogs and videos on the big issues (LINK) and how the delegates are getting on with the global issues at hand – the Environment, Interfaith Dialogue and The Role of Global Business are the subjects for the first day. There are 6 sessions over 2 days, and the delegates will pass resolutions based on what they’ve heard from the counsellors.

On the last day (10th), World Have Your Say will hold a special ‘7th Plenary’ at 6pm GMT. This is where you’ll get to hear, and speak to, the leaders of tomorrow.

I’m speaking to a few of the delegates as I write this, and they’re a pretty diverse bunch, which is great. They all come from different backgrounds, but they’re all hoping to achieve the same thing – change for the better.

So keep across the blog…you’ll see more profiles of the delegates, follow WHYS on Twitter from the event from next Monday and feel free to chat to the delegates through this blog.

The list of counselors troubles me because it seems limited to people the world defines as personally very successful. Personal success requires a knack for self-serving behaviors, which are seldom completely submerged even in ostensibly altruistic activities. Young people have been taking advice and example from similar lists of counselors since before the discovery of fire. How are they to alter humankind’s historically repetitive path with the same stale list of guides? We are competitive nation-states and so long as we serve only national needs; we will not be a global people. Perhaps the counselor group should include more of those who serve world humanity, rather than include so many who have been and are now served by it.
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